Trump defiant as special counsel moves toward indictment for Capitol riot

Former President Donald Trump is bracing for a federal indictment related to the riot at the U.S. Capitol and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election after prosecutors named him as a target of a grand jury investigation in Washington.

The so-called target letter from special counsel Jack Smith, which Mr. Trump disclosed on social media, did not say what charges the former president would face from the sprawling probe. Investigators have looked into a variety of Trump plots to reverse his election defeat in 2020.

The potential charges stemming from the riot would almost certainly be the most serious against Mr. Trump.

“This is the case the government most wants to win, and they are going to pull out all the stops and do whatever they can do to win,” said Joseph Moreno, a former federal prosecutor and FBI consultant. “They want Trump to face consequences for Jan. 6. The government wants this case so bad because it’s symbolic for them.”

If the grand jury hands up an indictment, as expected, it will be the third time this year that criminal charges have been filed against Mr. Trump. A single charge was unprecedented for a former president or a front-running candidate for the White House.

Mr. Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site that his attorneys notified him of the letter on Sunday. Mr. Trump said he was given four days to “report to the grand jury,” a likely prelude to indictment and arrest.

“Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden’s DOJ, sent a letter (again, it was Sunday night!) stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the grand jury, which almost always means an Arrest and indictment,” Mr. Trump wrote.

Legal analysts said testifying before the grand jury would be a trap for Mr. Trump.

“It would be walking into an ambush,” said Kendall Coffey, a former U.S. attorney in Miami. “The government has already made up its mind to indict Trump, and anything he would say to contradict their narrative might cause them to tack on charges of false statements and perjury.”

Anything a witness says in grand jury testimony can be used as evidence to support criminal charges. Defense attorneys cannot object or present evidence countering the prosecutors’ narrative.

Mr. Trump’s legal team has not formally responded to the letter, but Mr. Trump is not expected to testify to the grand jury.

Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Christopher Kise confirmed the target letter in a Florida court hearing Tuesday afternoon. They appeared before a federal judge in the classified document case, which Mr. Smith also brought. They gave no details about the letter but said it shows that prosecutors are besieging Mr. Trump.

On Truth Social, the former president fumed against Mr. Smith and said the specter of a criminal indictment amounts to election interference. He pointed to his wide lead in early 2024 polling.

“Nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before, or even close,” he wrote.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, declined to comment.

Mr. Trump faces 37 federal charges in a separate case alleging he illegally mishandled classified documents.

In March, a Manhattan grand jury indicted Mr. Trump on state charges alleging he falsified records to cover up hush-money payments in 2016 to women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with him. Mr. Trump denied their claims.

In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is overseeing an investigation of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results in that state and has hinted that the former president could be indicted next month. Ms. Willis said she will make a changing decision in August.

Also Tuesday, Michigan’s attorney general filed felony charges against 16 Republicans who acted as fake electors for Mr. Trump in 2020 by submitting false certifications to overturn Mr. Biden’s election victory. Mr. Trump wasn’t charged in that case.

It is the Jan. 6, 2021, case that presents the most legal peril for Mr. Trump.

“In the first two cases — the one in New York and the classified document case — no one was hurt and there was no indication security was breached,” said Mr. Coffey. “In this case, there were deaths associated with Jan. 6, and House and Senate members were confronted with violence. That is going to have a qualitative impact.”

During the Jan. 6 riot, four pro-Trump demonstrators died. One was fatally shot by Capitol Police, another died of a drug overdose and two others died of natural causes. A Capitol Police officer died of a stroke after the riot, and four other officers who responded to the attack died by suicide within seven months.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Mr. Smith in November to investigate actions by Mr. Trump and his allies in the wake of the 2020 election.

Mr. Trump said the contest was rigged against him and that Congress should send back electoral vote counting to certain states. The claims reached a tipping point when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol as lawmakers tried to certify Joseph R. Biden’s victory.

Witnesses who have appeared before the grand jury have been grilled for hours about meetings Mr. Trump held to stop Mr. Biden’s election win. Former Vice President Mike Pence and Trump White House figures Stephen Miller, Pat Cipollone and Mark Meadows are among those who have testified before the panel.

It’s unclear which criminal charges Mr. Trump would face, but they might not be more serious than seditious conspiracy or insurrection. Legal analysts say prosecutors will want to pursue easier, more provable charges such as obstructing an official proceeding, making false statements, or falsifying documents related to a plot to secure fraudulent election certifications from seven battleground states.

“This is the case prosecutors most want to bring because they feel it has the most teeth and resonates with people,” said Mr. Moreno, the former federal prosecutor. “The government only has to prove one charge, so it can be the most mundane of all the charges so they can claim victory.”

Mr. Trump could be charged with seditious conspiracy. Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, who is staring down an 18-year prison sentence for his role in the Capitol attack, is facing the same charges.

“They’re going to do the same thing to President Trump that they did to me,” Rhodes, who did not enter the Capitol during the riot, recently told The Washington Times.

Democrats from the now-defunct House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 riot said the target letter confirms their findings that Mr. Trump masterminded a coup attempt. The committee forwarded conclusions to the Justice Department for its investigation.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat who served on the Jan. 6 committee, said the former president deserves to be the target of a criminal investigation.

“If this is where the evidence takes the prosecutors, then I’m glad that our justice system is working,” said Mr. Raskin, who also led the prosecution of Mr. Trump on impeachment charges for inciting the Jan. 6 riot.

The Democratic-run House impeached Mr. Trump for inciting the riot but acquitted by the Republican-run Senate.

Republicans accused the Justice Department of weaponizing the nation’s law enforcement apparatus against a political rival of Mr. Biden.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Republican, defended Mr. Trump’s actions in the wake of the election as a justified attempt to root out fraud. She said an indictment would be unfounded and Mr. Trump would be cleared in court.

“We are worse than Russia. We are worse than China. We are worse than some of the most corrupt Third World countries, and this needs to end. It’s an absolute lie,” Ms. Greene said. “President Trump has [been] proven innocent time and time and time again, and he’ll be proven innocent again.”

Rep. Elise Stefanik, New York Republican and chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, said it was “yet again another example of Joe Biden’s weaponized Department of Justice targeting his top political opponent, Donald Trump.”

Mr. Trump’s Republican political rivals said the possible indictment confirms that the former president is unfit for office.

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a staunchly anti-Trump Republican running for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, challenged Mr. Trump casting himself as a victim.

“The real victims of Jan. 6 were our democracy, our rule of law, and those Capitol Police officers who worked valiantly to protect our Capitol,” Mr. Hutchinson said.

Mr. Trump’s legal troubles haven’t hobbled his front-runner status in the 2024 Republican presidential race. He has used the charges to successfully rally his supporters, saying he is the victim of a two-tiered justice system.

The situation is forcing his 2024 rivals into an awkward position. They are hoping to leapfrog Mr. Trump in the primary while trying not to alienate Mr. Trump’s fervent base.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the top Republican challenger to Mr. Trump, took a balanced approach Tuesday by saying Mr. Trump could have done more to stem the violence on Jan. 6 but criticized Democrats for weaponizing the Justice Department.

“I think it was shown how he was in the White House and didn’t do anything while things were going on. He should have come out more forcefully, of course,” Mr. DeSantis said. “But to try to criminalize that, that’s a different issue entirely, and I think that we want to be in a situation where … you don’t have one side just constantly trying to put the other side in jail. And that, unfortunately, is what we’re seeing now.”

Nikki Haley, another Republican presidential candidate and ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, said the letter proves that Republicans need to move on from Mr. Trump.

“We can’t keep dealing with this drama, we can’t keep dealing with the negativity, we can’t keep dealing with all of this,” she said on Fox News.

“It’s going to keep on going,” she said, and Republicans “need a new generational leader.”